Palliative Care in Latin America: Are We Making Any Progress? Assessing Development Over Time Using Macro Indicators

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Policy
• Palliative Care Research

Background:

• Monitoring palliative care development is crucial for identifying progress and challenges.
• Latin America shows varying levels of palliative care integration and accessibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To update the status of palliative care development in Latin America.
• To introduce and apply a new index (ALCP Index-II) for measuring palliative care progress.
• To enable comparative analysis of palliative care development across countries.

Main Methods:

• Secondary analysis of data from the 2012 and 2020 Atlas of Palliative Care in Latin America.
• Utilized indicators for Policy, Education, Access to Medicines, and Service Provision.
• Constructed the ALCP Index-II using z-scores for country ranking (High, Moderate, Low).

Main Results:

• Increased national palliative care plans (29% to 53%) and medical school integration (4.2% to 17.1%).
• Slight rise in distributed opioid morphine equivalence (6.6 to 7.1 mg/capita) and services (1.5 to 2.6/million).
• ALCP Index-II showed significant heterogeneity, with Uruguay, Chile, and Costa Rica ranking highest; Honduras lowest.

Conclusions:

• Palliative care development in Latin America has seen notable advancements.
• The ALCP Index-II effectively assesses and compares palliative care progress across nations.
• Further efforts are needed to address disparities in palliative care provision.